Identifying and Recognizing 5S at Work – What You Need to Do

The 5S workplace organization process is a lean manufacturing prerequisite for activities such as single unit processing and single minute exchange of die (SMED), and it also supports safety (OSHAS 18001) by removing clutter from the workplace. While 5S supposedly originated in Japan, most of its elements were actually deployed by Henry Ford during the 1910s and 1920s, and some existed even earlier. Ford also introduced recognizable safety techniques such as lockout-tagout and error proofing, or what the Army's Risk Management Process calls engineering controls.

Join expert speaker William A. Levinson in this session to get more insights of 5S workplaces. He will share how you can recognize the 5S as a workplace organization process that supports lean manufacturing, safety, and continual improvement. You will also learn about the elements of 5S, and why safety as the 6th S (element) is essential for eliminating instances of workplace injuries.

Learning Objectives

Know the historical origins and proven success of 5S as practiced at the Ford Motor Company during the first part of the 20th century.

Describe 5S in the language of money, noting that Frederick Winslow Taylor was able to reduce his maintenance staff enormously, and presumably assign the workers to production rather than maintenance, through a well-organized preventive maintenance system.

Know the 5Ss and how to apply them.

Seiri = Clearing Up removes all unnecessary equipment, tools, and materials from the value-adding workplace (gemba).

Seitori = Arranging eliminates the need to search for tools and parts, which eliminates non-value-adding work and facilitates the single-minute exchange of die (SMED).

Seiketsu = Ongoing Improvement includes preventive thinking and "unbreakable standardization." While S1 (Clearing Up) removes unnecessary items from the workplace, for example, just in time production prevents them from accumulating in the first place.

Learn valuable safety principles that can make workplace injuries rare or even impossible.

Start with Henry Ford's extensive list of 12 common accident causes (12 categories in a cause and effect diagram for workplace accidents)

See how Ford's "can't rather than don't" (error-proofing, poka-yoke) principle crosses off five of the root cause categories up front.

5S eliminates two more.

ISO 9001:2015 "Environment for operation of processes" removes two more.

The ISO 9001:2015 Infrastructure clause disposes of another two. (Note how ISO 9001 ties in squarely with workplace safety as part of an integrated management system.)

Personnel protective equipment (PPE) and clothing regulations, e.g. loose clothing, eliminates another to leave us with the title of Agatha Christie's mystery novel: "And then there were none."

Also recognize the value of workplace safety committees.

Who should attend

Professionals who are engaged in:

Manufacturing

Quality Control

About Our Speaker(s)

William A. Levinson P.E.William A. Levinson, P.E., is the principal of Levinson Productivity Systems, P.C. He is an ASQ Fellow, Certified Quality Engineer, Quality Auditor, Quality Manager, Reliability Engineer, and Six Sigma Black Belt. He is also the author of several books on quality, productivity, and management, of which the most recent ... More info